Over the past 18 months, NAPUS has raised concerns about the lack of data to indicate the amount of money the U.S. Postal Service saved as a result of reduced post office hours and post office re-classifications. In fact, one year ago, President Tony Leonardi testified before a Senate forum on rural mail issues at which he called for a moratorium on further post office hour reductions and re-classifications, particularly with regard to current Level-18 post offices. In part, NAPUS declared at the forum that the lack of accurate data, no assessment of rural impact, and the absence of information relating to revenue losses justified a pause in post office hour reductions and re-classifications. Shortly thereafter, Senators Heidi Heitkamp and Tom Carper introduced S. 1754 and S. 2051, bills that include NAPUS-supported provisions to implement the post office moratorium.

This past Friday, April 29, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) added its expert voice to the legislative discussion. At the request of House Oversight and Government Reform Chair Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and House Government Operations Subcommittee Chair Mark Meadows (R-NC), the GAO conducted a performance audit of POStPlan. In sum, the GAO concluded that the Postal Service’s “estimates of expected POStPlan cost savings have limitations that affect their reliability.” (Highlights of GAO-16-385, April 2016) The GAO went on to point out that these limitations include “imprecise and incomplete labor costs, including errors in underlying data; lack of sensitivity review; and the exclusion of other factors that affect net cost savings, particularly the potential impact of reduced retail hours on revenue.” (Highlights of GAO-16-385, April 2016) And, the GAO report concluded: “Although POStPlan was an initiative that affected about 66 percent of US post offices and Postmasters, USPS did not produce cost-savings estimates with the level of rigor that an initiative with such a large footprint may have warranted.” (GAO-16-385, April 2016, p. 31)

NAPUS believes that the GAO report reinforces its call for a post office hour reduction and reclassification moratorium.

In January the League of Postmasters and NAPUS agreed to merge the two postmaster organizations, which have been decimated by the closing of many post offices, and the elimination of postmaster positions in other small offices. The new organization was to have been called “Postmasters and Managers of America” (PMA). Now the organizations have changed the name slightly to avoid confusion with existing organizations:

The Executive Boards of NAPUS and the League decided to name their successor consolidated organization the “United Postmasters and Managers of America (UPMA)”. The two Postmaster organizations determined that using the previously agreed upon name, the Postmasters and Managers of America would result in the acronym “PMA”, an abbreviation shared by a number of organizations, including one that participates in the Federal-Postal Coalition, the Professional Managers Association. There was concern about potential confusion, particularly in the federal coalition, an umbrella group in which both Postmaster associations currently participate.

The merger of the two management organizations is expected to be finalized at their respective conventions later this summer.

As a result of a Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) negotiated with the APWU, the Reduction in Force (RIF) separation date for all remaining impacted POStPlan Postmasters in 2, 4 and 6 hour offices has been extended until February 6, 2015.

The effective date of RIF demotions and voluntary reassignments is now February 7, 2015. If you already sent in your acceptance form, you do not need to take further action at this time.

The MOU dated December 31, 2014, will allow impacted Postmasters whose offices have been re-evaluated to a 2 or 4 hour per day Remotely Managed Post Office (RMPO) with an opportunity to volunteer to become career PTF clerks.

A letter providing informationabout the new option for impacted Postmasters, including how to accept the assignment offer, your pay and work schedule if you accept the offer, will be provided to you in the coming days.

All separations, including optional retirement and RIF separations will be effective Friday, February 6, 2015. If you have submitted a retirement action effective January 9th, the Human Resources Shared Services Center (HRSSC) will reach out to you directly.

Questions should be directed to your District Human Resources Manager or Manager, Post Office Operations.

NAPUS and the LEAGUE have received Steven Goldberg’s arbitration decision on POStPLan. Both organizations are deeply disappointed with the decision and are still working through the details of the arbitration document. Clearly this will have an impact on PMRs in 4-hour RMPOs, vacant 6-hour RMPOs and 6-hour Postmaster positions in the future. We can be thankful that incumbent 6-hour Postmasters (including those being RIF’d to 6-hour Postmaster positions), will keep their Postmaster position as long as they do not vacate the office. Once these offices are vacated, they too will be staffed by APWU employees.

Here is an overview of the arbitration:
• 2-hour RMPOs will stay staffed with PMRs
• 4-hour RMPOs will be staffed with APWU PSEs. The PMRs in these offices will have the opportunity to take the test and apply for the positions.
• 6-hour RMPOs will be staffed by NTFT employees or traditional employees. Those offices with incumbent Postmasters, including those accepting their own office as a RIF offer with a reduction to 6 hours, will stay in the jobs until vacated.
• PTPOs 6-hour offices will stay staffed with a Postmaster. These offices were not part of the arbitration decision since they still have all of the Postmaster administrative responsibilities.

When any RMPO or PTPO is evaluated and increases to a Level 18, the office will then be posted and filled by a non-bargaining employee and managed by a Postmaster.

All Level 18 offices will be staffed with PTFs instead of PSEs, ending the staffing issues for many Level 18 Postmasters.

Both Postmaster organizations continue to review the POStPlan Arbitration. Clearly the fact that Postmaster administrative duties were removed from the 6-hour Postmaster positions and the 4-hour RMPOs weighed heavily on the arbitrator’s decision.

We will keep you posted as to further developments regarding the arbitration as well as the timeline for conversion of the 4-hour RMPOs from PMR to PSE employees.

There are a lot of anxious POStPlan impacted Postmasters waiting for final news on the specific RIF timelines and events associated with this phase of POStPlan implementation. We continue to meet with Postal Headquarters and minor changes come from each of these meetings which will push back any formal announcement. The Postmaster organizations and Postal Headquarters have spent a great deal of time discussing the implementation and events that will lead up to the final RIF date, with the same end result in mind—get everyone placed before the RIF effective date. These discussions have been in the best interests of all Postmasters who are still impacted and because of this the RIF timeline has been extended. The effective RIF date for impacted Postmasters will now be 1/10/2015. Continue reading →

The Postal Service and NAPUS President, Tony Leonardi along with League President, Mark Strong continue to discuss final POStPLAN implementation.

Post Offices were scheduled to be notified of their daily earned workhours using FY 2013 data by close of PQ II (03/31/2014). The delay in notification by Postal Service was due to ongoing discussions and validation of data.

A determination and timeline on implementation is expected soon. We will update our website when information is finalized.

As the result of a recent meeting between NAPUS President Bob Rapoza and incoming President Tony Leonardi with Postal Service representatives, a clarification has been issued on the effective date of Level 18 offices that would be downgraded in FY 2016. The original statement from Postal Headquarters was that while encumbered EAS-18 offices would continue to be evaluated under POStPlan on an annual basis, none of these offices would be downgraded until FY 2016. During a recent meeting with Postal Service representatives, NAPUS requested that the downgrade of encumbered EAS-18 offices be extended through FY 2016, and that request was approved, with an effective date of the end of September, 2016.

Yesterday, at about 3:45 PM EST, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chair Tom Carper D-DE pulled the plug on consideration of S. 1486 for the year. Up until that time, the Carper-Coburn postal reform bill was scheduled on the committee calendar for a Wednesday morning “markup”. Nevertheless, committee consideration of the bill was predicated on the ability of the Chairman and Committee Ranking Republican Tom Coburn R-OK to reach an agreement on a “managers’ amendment” to replace S. 1486, as introduced.

During fall hearings on S. 1486, both Senators recognized the imperfections in the bill and pledged to collaborate on a managers’ amendment to address the problems; however, a number of key disagreements between the Senators could not be resolved by Tuesday afternoon. In addition, many doubt that even if such an amendment was to have been constructed, it would have been able to garner the support of a committee majority 9 votes. So, on Monday evening, a “chairman’s substitute amendment” was under consideration, but that possibility fizzled by mid-Tuesday. Under normal circumstances, all amendments should have been filed by 5:00 PM EST, on Monday, but the rule could be waived with consent of the Chairman and Ranking Republican. In any event, committee members filed 25 amendments by the Monday deadline.

Over the past week, NAPUS Legislative Chairs represented by Senators serving on the Homeland Security were in communication with their Senators, and, on Tuesday morning, were explaining NAPUS’ positions on the key filed amendments and the underlying provisions in the bill.

In sum, a legislative reset may take place early next year, possibly with a much narrower measure that addresses just the retiree pre-funding issue and some other issues, and such a bill would probably need to be considered by the committee by Presidents’ Day. And, just in case you forgot about the House of Representatives, there has been no effort to schedule H.R. 2748, the Issa postal reform bill, for floor action.